Willow Smith (daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith) and Tyler Cole are music’s enfants terribles. Together known as The Anxiety, they are expressing more than angst with their latest Black Lives Matter inspired protest song. The Anxiety translates into song the pain, rage, and anomie of the Black community that has simmered for decades as dreams deferred to the nightmares of racial inequality, exaggerated rates of incarceration, state sanctioned killings of Black men, women, and children in a post-civil rights and post-racial America.
And then the grisly murder of Houstonian George Floyd at the knee of Minneapolis PD officer Derek Chauvin happened.
Captured on an iPhone, we watched as Mr. Floyd begged for his life and called out to his Mama before his life slipped away before our eyes. It was the boiling point. The African-American community was jolted awake from their collective fevered dream and all hell broke loose.
As an explosion of marches and riots ensued, Willow and Tyler went into the studio and quickly emerged with THE protest anthem of this generation, “The System”. It is a rallying cry. A visceral ode to this Black Lives Matter moment. A flash-point that has fueled demonstrations throughout the country and the world. The video for the song compiled of newsreel is equally as forceful. Check it!!!
